Friday, December 10, 2021

Africa’s Primeval Forests

“Africa is called the Dark Continent for one reason only: the vast equatorial rain forests of its central region. This is the drainage basin of the Congo River, one-tenth of the continent is given over to it—a million and half square miles of silent, damp, dark forest, a single uniform geographical feature nearly the size of the continental United States.

This primeval forest has stood, unchanged, for more than sixty million years. Enormous trees with trunks up to forty feet in diameter rise two-hundred feet overhead, where they spread their dense leafy canopy, blotting out the sky and perpetually dripping water to the ground below.”

Congo, Michael Crichton, 1980

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